Ernest
O. Lawrence (1901-1958) helped elevate American physics to
world leadership. His invention of the cyclotron, an accelerator of
subatomic particles, won him the Nobel Prize in 1939. His entrepreneurial
development of the Radiation Laboratory at Berkeley ushered in the era
of "Big Science."
During World War II Lawrence and his machines took part in the Manhattan
Project, which produced the first atomic bombs. In the early Cold War
years he played a key role in forging a new relationship between science
and the federal government and in the establishment of a system of National
Laboratories, two of which now bear his name.